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Portrait of Cerebellum

Anatomy · Brain & nerves

Cerebellum

The 'little brain'

Brain · hindbrain

A tightly folded, fist-sized structure tucked beneath the back of the cerebrum and behind the brainstem. It fine-tunes movement, balance and posture and helps with motor learning, comparing intended actions with what actually happens and correcting the difference. Though it holds only about a tenth of the brain's volume, it contains the majority of its neurons.

How to spot them

  • ▸A ridged, cauliflower-like mass at the back and underneath, separated from the big upper hemispheres by a tent of dura
  • ▸Very fine parallel folds (folia) like the pages of a closed book, and a central strip called the vermis
  • ▸In section the white matter branches like a tree: the arbor vitae
  • ▸Attached to the brainstem by three pairs of peduncles; the fourth ventricle lies in front of it

What to know

Latin for 'little brain', it is tucked under the back of the big hemispheres

Cerebellum — the diminutive of cerebrum.

Holds only about 10 per cent of the brain's volume yet roughly four-fifths of its neurons

Cerebellum — its tiny granule cells are the most numerous neurons in the brain.

Its section shows white matter branching like a tree, the 'tree of life'

Cerebellum — the arbor vitae.

Damage produces unsteady walking, intention tremor and an inability to make rapid alternating movements

Cerebellum — ataxia, intention tremor and dysdiadochokinesia.

Two hemispheres joined by a narrow midline strip called the vermis, or 'worm'

Cerebellum — vermis is Latin for worm.

Linked to the brainstem by three pairs of peduncles: superior, middle and inferior

Cerebellum — the middle peduncle is the largest and carries fibres from the pons.

Its Purkinje cells, among the largest neurons in the body, are named after a Czech physiologist

Cerebellum — Jan Evangelista Purkyně described them in 1837.

Key ideas

  • It does not start movements but refines them: it compares the intended movement with sensory feedback and corrects errors.
  • Each half of the cerebellum controls the same side of the body (ipsilateral), unlike the cerebrum.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Its name is the Latin diminutive of cerebrum: 'little brain'
  • •About 10 per cent of the brain's volume but roughly 80 per cent of its neurons, mostly tiny granule cells
  • •Sits in the posterior cranial fossa beneath the tentorium cerebelli, behind the pons and medulla
  • •The fourth ventricle lies between the cerebellum and the pons and medulla
  • •Has two hemispheres and a central vermis; the surface folds are called folia
  • •The cerebellar tonsils can be pushed down through the foramen magnum in a Chiari malformation
  • •Purkinje cells, named after Jan Purkyně in 1837, are its output neurons
  • •Cerebellar damage typically causes ataxia, intention tremor and slurred, 'scanning' speech, on the same side as the lesion
  • •Involved in motor learning, such as riding a bicycle, and in some cognitive tasks

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